By some estimates, about a million people marched in cities across Brazil on Thursday, airing a wide array of grievances. As O Globo frames it, it was a day marked by violent demonstrations, vandalism and intense clashes with military police.
In Brasilia, the country's capital, about 60,000 people took to the streets, according to O Globo. Three people were arrested, 39 were injured and the country's Foreign Ministry was "left in a state of destruction."
"There is a lot of broken glass on the floor and garden lights and metal frames were thrown inside through a broken back door," the newspaper reports.
The Associated Press says one person in So Paulo state was killed "when a car rammed into a crowd of demonstrators, after the driver apparently became enraged about being unable to drive along a street."
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who has praised protesters, scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting for this morning.
O Globo says Rousseff wants to "analyze the situation in the country" and determine how the government can contain violent protests.
As we've reported, the protests started over a price hike on public transportation, but quickly broadened and became about everything from government corruption to the government's focus on the upcoming World Cup and Olympics. After the first wave of mass protests, some local governments relented, lowering the price of bus and metro tickets or promising to hold talks about them.
But, Reuters reports, protesters were undeterred by the overture:
"In central Rio de Janeiro, where 300,000 people marched, police afterwards chased looters and dispersed people crowding into surrounding areas.
" 'Twenty cents was just the start,' read signs held by many converging along the Avenida Paulista, the broad avenue in central So Paulo, referring to the bus fare reductions. Police there said 110,000 people lined the avenue."